For individuals, actual grief is intimate, often
ineffable. Maybe no one can help much, but expressions of caring and
condolences can matter. So, too, can indifference. Or worse. The first
years of the 21st century normalized U.S. warfare in countries where
civilians kept dying and American callousness seemed to harden. From the
USA, a pattern froze and showed no signs of thawing; denials continued
to be reflexive, while expressions of regret were perfunctory or
nonexistent.Drones became a key weapon — and symbol — of the U.S. war trajectory.
With a belated nod to American public opinion early in the century’s
second decade, Washington’s interest in withdrawing troops from
Afghanistan did not reflect official eagerness to stop killing there or
elsewhere. It did reflect eagerness to bring U.S. warfare more
into line with the latest contours of domestic politics. The allure of
remote-control devices like drones — integral to modern
“counterterrorism” ideas at the Pentagon and CIA — has been enmeshed in
the politics of grief. So much better theirs than ours.Many people in the United States don’t agree with a foreign policy
that glories in use of drones, cruise missiles and the like, but such
disagreement is in a distinct minority. (A New York Times/CBS poll in
late April 2013 found Americans favoring U.S. overseas drone strikes by
70 to 20 percent.) With the “war on terror” a longtime fact of political
life, even skeptics or unbelievers are often tethered to some concept
of pragmatism that largely privatizes misgivings. In the context of
political engagement — when a person’s internal condition is much less
important than outward behavior — notions of realism are apt to
encourage a willing suspension of disbelief. As a practical matter, we
easily absorb the dominant U.S. politics of grief, further making it our politics of grief.The amazing technology of “unmanned aerial vehicles” glided forward as a satellite-guided deus ex machina to
help lift Uncle Sam out of a tight geopolitical spot — exerting awesome
airpower in Afghanistan and beyond while slowing the arrival of
flag-draped coffins back home. More airborne killing and less boot
prints on the ground meant fewer U.S. casualties. All the better to
limit future grief, as much as possible, to those who are not us.

Let's move over to Third. Dallas and the following worked on the edition:

Tuesday, May 28, 2013. Chaos and violence continue, Iraq is again
slammed with violence as the death toll for the month gets ever closer
to 800, Jane Arraf goes on the radio to cover for Nouri, US Vice
President Joe Biden's attempt to help backfired (we're not psychics for
predicting it would last Friday) and only fuels talk in Iraq that the US
is trying to partition the country and earns Biden the nickname of "The
Godfather of the Divide," the wife of Tyrone Woods has a response to
Hillary Clinton, the physically ugly and mentally challenged Kevin Drum
declares himself 'bored' and more.

Baghdad, 28 May 2013–The Special Representative of
the United Nations Secretary-General for Iraq (SRSG), Mr. Martin Kobler,
condemned in the strongest terms yesterday’s wave of bomb attacks that
killed and injured dozens of innocent Iraqis in several crowded
commercial areas of Baghdad.
“I once again urge all Iraqi leaders to do everything possible to
protect Iraqi civilians. It is their responsibility to stop the
bloodshed now,” said Mr. Kobler. “It is the politicians’ responsibility
to act immediately and to engage in dialogue to resolve the political
impasse and not let terrorists benefit from their political
differences.”

“We will continue to remind the leaders of Iraq that the country will
slide into a dangerous unknown if they do not take immediate action,” UN
Envoy stressed.

The violence is on Nouri for many reasons. For example, back in July, Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) observed,
"Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has struggled to forge a lasting
power-sharing agreement and has yet to fill key Cabinet positions,
including the ministers of defense, interior and national security,
while his backers have also shown signs of wobbling support." Those
posts were supposed to have been filled by the end of 2010. They've
never been filled. You can also look to the training that the Iraqi
police received. Walter C. Ladwig III (World Politics) has a really strong overview of the US-efforts at police training in Iraq. We're noting this section:

Almost from its inception the program was criticized by Iraqi officials
for neglecting their priorities and providing substandard training.
Consequently, American advisers received little “buy-in” from their
local counterparts. At the same time, auditors in the United States
objected to the fact that little more than 10 percent of the funds
allocated for the program would actually be spent on advising the Iraqi
police -- the bulk of the money would be spent on providing security for
advisers and sustaining them in the field. In the face of these
criticisms, the scope and size of the program was repeatedly scaled
back, and in March 2013 it was canceled entirely, leaving Iraq’s 400,000
police without mentorship. The Afghan police assistance mission is
still ongoing; however, observers anticipate that responsibility for the
mission will similarly transition to the State Department when the U.S.
military withdraws in 2014.

It's actually worse than what he's covering. First, Jordan was training
Iraqi police officers early in the war. The US government stopped
that. As he notes in his piece, the DoD was over the training for a
number of years. With regards to the State Dept, however, there's a key
detail. It's really disturbing in fact. It came out in the November
30, 2011 House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South
Asia hearing (we covered that hearing in the December 1, 2011 snapshot)
as the State Dept's Brook Darby testified. The State Dept being over
the police program was really important, Darby explained, because they
were going to spend time training the police on basic human rights -- in
fact, on "gender and human rights." She repeated this throughout the
hearing, "The PDP [Police Development Program] mentors Iraqi police
leadership on how to regularize their engagement with the people they
serve while protecting Iraq's communities, its borders and respect for
human rights." She declared, "At the MOI's [Ministry of Information]
request, PDP is already putting together a strategic plan on gender and
human rights."US House Rep Gary Ackerman: Why are we doing human rights and gender issues in Iraq and not Botswana?Brooke Darby: Iraq, and stability in Iraq and security in Iraq, is
very much in the US national security interest. It is important to us
to have a stable and secure partner in the region. It is important to
us to have a partner on combating the types of complex threats we face
as a --US House Rep Gary Ackerman: How important is it in terms of dollars?
Let's assume the rate is constant and it is $900 million a year.Brooke Darby: Sir, we have already made an investment.

Why was human rights needed? Darby repeatedly referred to what the US
military had done, built a police force up from scratch over seven
years. She praised their work on "very basic police skills" ("excellent
job") but noted that human rights training was needed.

So by the testimony of the Deputy Assistant Secretary, International
Narcotics and Law Enforcement at the State Dept, Brooke Darby, the Iraqi
police were trained for seven years, from scratch, and human rights was
never part of the program or gender rights. So, in 2012, the State
Dept was going to fix this with training in these issues (as well as
other training). The program got gutted and is no more. And human
rights were clearly never taught to the police. That's why there are so
many stories of abuses -- which is one of the reasons have been
protesting since December. It never should have waited so late but
grasp that when the police program was cancelled under the State Dept it
had not done any training on human rights -- under DoD or, briefly,
under State.

QUESTION: In the last couple days, there’s been a real spike
in violence and the country seems to be coming apart. Is the United
States doing anything on the ground to mediate --

MR. VENTRELL: Okay.

QUESTION: -- other than condemnation? Can you share with us
something that you are actually doing sort of urgently to meet the
urgency of the situation?

MR. VENTRELL: Well, our Embassy is very engaged. The Vice President of the United States is very engaged.Let me start, though, of course, with our strong condemnation. The
United States strongly condemns the terrorist attacks in Baghdad
yesterday, where numerous car bombs detonated, killing and injuring
scores of innocent people. We are deeply concerned by the frequency and
nature of recent attacks, including the bombing of a bus today in
Baghdad and a truck bomb north of Baghdad as well today. So the
targeting of innocent people in an effort to sow instability and
division is reprehensible, and our condolences go out to the victims and
their families.U.S. officials in Baghdad and Washington are intensively engaged.
We’re in contact with a wide range of senior Iraqi leaders to urge calm
and help resolve ongoing political and sectarian tensions. And the level
of U.S. engagement is evidenced including by the Vice President’s
engagement, which you saw the readouts to late last week.So our talks from the Embassy, they’re focused on specific steps to
avoid further violence and resolve key issues peacefully through
dialogue and through the political process.

QUESTION: Why doesn’t the United States – I mean, there is a
great deal of attention to the Syrian civil war, for instance.
Conferences are being organized and so on, Friends of Syria, all that
stuff, but Iraq, on the other hand, continues to bleed. And you are
basically a very important ingredient of what is going on in Iraq. Why
doesn’t the United States, for instance, lead an effort to
reconciliation, to bring the groups together?MR. VENTRELL: Said, we’re – we remain committed to supporting
Iraq’s democratic system, and we urge Iraq leaders to continue to
working toward a peaceful resolution, to work through their system, to
work through dialogue. And so we continue to work to help Iraq overcome
the threat of terrorism and its internal issues. So this is something
we’re very actively engaged on and very focused on.

"The Vice President of the United States is very engaged," Ventrell stated. That's not helping. Friday's snapshot
noted his three phone calls -- to KRG President Massoud Barzani,
Speaker of Iraqi Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi and Iraqi Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki -- and what a mistake this was:I like Joe Biden. But talk about tone deaf on the part of the White
House, talk about the need for Arabic speakers in the White House. There
is nothing worse they could have done then have Joe Biden speak to
Iraqi leaders today -- this month.
In the US, Joe Biden represents many things to different sets of
people. In Iraq? He's got two images and let's focus on the most
damaging: He proposed, as US Senator, that peace in Iraq would be
possible only by splitting the country into a Shi'ite South, a Sunni
central and the KRG in the north. As Senator. And we noted, while
running for the presidential nomination, right before Iowa, Joe had
noted if the US Congress didn't support then the idea was dead. We
covered that here.
Most ignored it because Biden's campaign was losing steam (he'd quickly drop out of the race).
It never registered in Iraq.
They continue to see Biden as the man who wants to split up their
country. And the Arabic press for the last three weeks has been full of
reports that it's about to happen, Iraq's about to split. Nouri's been
in contact with Biden, the Kurds came to Baghdad just to ensure that
the split takes place, blah blah blah. Whispers with no foundation --
they may be true, they may be false -- have been all over Arabic media
-- not just social media, all of the Iraqi outlets have reported it --
and reported it as a done deal.
So with the tension and fear rising in Iraq currently, why is Biden the
go-to? This was absolutely the wrong thing at the wrong time and these
calls with the various leaders, whatever their intent (I'm told military
issues were discussed with Nouri -- specifically more troops under the
Strategic Framework Agreement and last December's Memorandum of
Understanding with the Defense Dept), are only going to fuel more rumors
in Iraq.

The Godfather of the Division.
That's what they're hailing US Vice President Joe Biden as in the Iraqi media. We said in yesterday's snapshot
that I could not believe the White House is so ignorant of what goes on
in Iraq. For weeks now, one article after another has been about
whispers of dividing Iraq into three regions. They've all noted Joe
Biden in those reports (because he favored a federation as late as
January 2008). With all the stress and tension Iraq's currently facing,
Joe Biden was the last person who needed to be calling political
leaders in Iraq yesterday: Nouri al-Maliki, Massoud Barzani and Osama
al-Nujaifi -- forget their parties, just note that's Shi'ite, Kurd and
Sunni.
[. . .]Are you seeing the problems that the White House missed?
There are already 3 major articles in the Iraqi press on this. In fact,
it's blown Karbala out of the cycle. (Karbala had been insisting that
Nouri take back those useless 'magic' wands that do not detect bombs.)
Of the three outlets, the one with the largest circulation is Dar Addustour. They don't just call him The Godfather of the Division, they add that he's a hero to those who wish to rip apart Iraq.

Today, Mohammad Sabah (Al Mada) reports
that last week's phone calls by US Vice President Joe Biden to KRG
President Massoud Barzani, Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi and
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The calls are referred to as a
"red herring" that the US is still attempting to split Iraq into three
regions. Kurdish MP Mahmoud Othman states that Biden's is trying to
throw dust into the eyes of Iraqis and distract them while the country
is split in three. He states that solutions for Iraq's future must come
from Iraq not the US.

Was the intent to enter a tense situation and sew distrust while
upsetting Iraqis? That is what was accomplished. And the violence
continues. All Iraq News quotes
Iraqiya leader Ayad Allawi stating, "The General Commander of Armed
Forces, the Premier, Nouri al-Maliki failed once again in providing
security in Iraq." Yesterday, cleric and movement leader Moqtada
al-Sadr addressed the violence. Alsumaria noted
Moqtada declared that the country is without a government to protect it and
that the people needed to eliminate hate from their heart. He attacked
Israel as the enemy and said the people had moved from God and were
being punished. Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi also weighed
in. NINA noted his call on "the government and security commanders, who refrained
from coming before Parliament, to present acceptable justifications for
the security deterioration that made the Iraqis pay dearly in the lives
of innocent people."
Last week on The World Today with Eleanor Hall (Australia's ABC 00 link is audio and text), Madeleine Morris reported on the continued violence:

MADELEINE MORRIS: But Dr Anthony Billingsley, a seasoned Iraq watcher
from the University of New South Wales thinks that blaming the violence
on external forces is a red herring.Rather, he believes the
Iraqi leader has brought most of the current problems on himself by
marginalising the country's Sunnis, the ethnic group of the former
leader, Saddam Hussein.ANTHONY BILLINGSLEY: It really requires
Nouri al-Maliki to step back and say, okay, I'll moderate my hostility
to Sunni. We will give them a look in. We will give them a chance to
have some sort of impact on the political system.But he's not showing any signs of that at the moment.MADELEINE MORRIS: So in that case, you're not confident that there's going to be any let up in the bloodshed any time soon?ANTHONY
BILLINGSLEY: No, and it doesn't seem to be any particular impulse on
the part of the government to address it. I mean, to talk about a
reformed security system to an extent suggests that all he wants to do
is go after the Sunni more effectively, rather than a reformed political
strategy, which is what he needs to do.MADELEINE MORRIS: It feels like we could be having this conversation in 2006.ANTHONY
BILLINGSLEY: That's correct. It's almost a revisiting of the same old
problem, the problem of the relationship between the Sunni and the Shia,
the unwillingness of the Sunni on one part to accept that they're now
the second most powerful community in the country, not the first.

Sunni
protests have increased after the arrest of Sunni Finance Minister Rafi
al-Issawi in December 2012, and after Iraqi-backed helicopters killed
dozens of peaceful protesters in the town of Hawijah on April 23.

She writes, "Sunni protests have increased after the arrest of Sunni Finance Minister Rafi al-Issawi in December 2012" -- what?

al-Issawi was not arrested in December of since. December 21st, the
protests kicked off (they've been ongoing ever since). Dropping back to
that day's snapshot:After morning prayers,Kitabat reports,
protesters gathered in Falluja to protest the arrests and Nouri
al-Maliki. They chanted down with Nouri's brutality and, in a move that
won't change their minds, found themselves descended upon by Nouri's
forces who violently ended the protest. Before that, Al Mada reports, they were chanting that terrorism and Nouri are two sides of the same coin. Kitabat also reports
that demonstrations also took place in Tikrit, Samarra, Ramdia and just
outside Falluja with persons from various tribes choosing to block
the road connecting Anbar Province (Falluja is the capitol of Anbar)
with Baghdad. Across Iraq, there were calls for Nouri to release the
bodyguards of Minister of Finance Rafie al-Issawi. Alsumaria notes demonstrators in Samarra accused Nouri of attempting to start a sectarian war.

Iraq's
Finance Minister Rafei al-Essawi said Thursday that "a militia force"
raided his house, headquarters and ministry in Baghdad and kidnapped
150 people, and he holds the nation's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki,
responsible for their safety. Members
of the al-Essawi's staff and guards were among those kidnapped from the
ministry Thursday, the finance minister said. He also said that his
computers and documents were searched at his house and headquarters. He
said the head of security was arrested Wednesday at a Baghdad checkpoint
for unknown reasons and that now the compound has no security.

Kitabat explains
that these raids took place in the Green Zone, were carried out by the
Iraqi military and that Nouri, yesterday evening, was insisting he knew
nothing about them. In another report, Tawfeeq quotes
al-Essawi stating, "My message to the prime minister: You are a man
who does not respect partnership at all, a man who does not respect the
law and the constitution, and I personally hold you fully responsible
for the safety of the kidnapped people." BBC News adds,
"Rafie al-Issawi, a prominent member of the al-Iraqiyya political bloc,
said about 150 of his bodyguards and staff members had been arrested on
Thursday."

al-Issawi was not arrested in December, he has not been arrested since. Policy Mic is incorrect in their accounting of events. But why should they be bound by facts when Jane Arraf so seldom is. Appearing today on PRI's The World, Arraf chuckled
throughout a report on violence -- it's not funny, Arraf -- and went on
to mock people who believe the political crisis and politicians are
behind the violence. She never explains the political crisis but she
goes on to mock people who believe politicians are carrying out
violence.

It's a really crazy world she's moved in to in order to become the PR Team for Nouri al-Maliki.

First, if you're going to laugh at accusations of politicians being
directly involved in violence, then you laugh at State of Law -- Nouri's
State of Law. State of Law MPs have been stating for over 7 days now
that they have a list of politicians (it's now 15 supposedly on the
list) who are 'terrorists' and responsible for the violence.

Jane Arraf goes on public radio to laugh at average Iraqi citizens when
the people in the news saying politicians are 'terrorists' are members
of the Parliament who belong to Nouri al-Maliki's State of Law. It's a
curious detail that escapes her. But details always escape Jane when
they make Nouri look bad. Which is how she pooh-pahs the idea that a
political crisis has led to the violence.

What a lie.

As briefly as possible, in 2010, Iraq held parliamentary elections and
the party or slate that won the most seats, per the Constitution, gets
to have one of their members named prime minister-designate. Once
named, the person has 30 days to put together a Cabinet or someone else
is named prime minister-designate. Should the person put together a
Cabinet (that means Parliament votes in favor of the nominees and all
slots are filled) in 30 days or less, the person is no longer prime
minister-designate but the prime minister.

Nouri's State of Law came in second to Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya. Instead
of stepping down and allowing a member of Iraqiya to be named prime
minister-designate, Nouri refused to honor the Constitution and for over
eight months created a political stalemate in the country. The
stalemate was ended by the US-brokered Erbil Agreement. US President
Barack Obama wanted Nouri to have a second term and he had officials
negotiate a legal contract that would go around the Constitution and
give Nouri a second term. In order to get the leaders of the other
political blocs to sign off, Nouri had to put concessions into the
contract -- such as Article 140 of the Constitution would be implemented
(the status of oil-rich Kirkuk -- part of the KRG or part of the
central government out of Baghdad -- would be decided by census and
referendum), Ayad Allawi would head a newly created independent national
security body, etc.

November 2010, The Erbil Agreement resulted in the end of the
stalemate. But Nouri refused to honor his promises in the contract
after he used the contract to 'win' a second term as prime minister.
The press -- including Jane Arraf -- covered for him in rel time, it was
too soon, he had to focus on this, but in a few weeks -- in a few
months -- in --- The day he was going to honor the contract never
arrived. By the summer of 2011, the Kurds, Iraqiya and Moqtada al-Sadr
were calling publicly for him to honor The Erbil Agreement. He refused.

This led to the attempt to replace him as prime minister in the spring
of 2012. That would have taken place, all the signatures were there,
but the US government placed heavy pressure on Iraqi President Jalal
Talabani and Talabani suddenly announced he could not forward the
petition (which would have immediately resulted in a vote in Parliament)
because some people who had signed it now wanted their names off. It
was a made up excuse. You sign a petition, you sign a petition. You
don't get to run after and say, "Wait! Wait! Take my name off!" You can
vote differently when Parliament votes on it but your change of heart on
a petition? Once you sign it, you signed it.

The heavy pressured on Jalal from the US government no doubt further
harmed Jalal's already questionable health. Last December, Iraqi
President Jalal
Talabani suffered a stroke. The incident took place late on December
17th (see the December 18th snapshot) and resulted in Jalal being admitted to Baghdad's Medical Center Hospital. Thursday, December 20th,
he was moved to Germany. He remains in Germany currently. At the
start of the month, there were new rumors swirling about his health and,
this past
week, Nouri al-Maliki attempted to have Jalal stripped of his post this
month.
(Parliament rejected the notion.) Following that, Al Mada ran
a photo of Jalal Talabani seated outdoors with his medical team and
noted the team states the Iraqi President's health has continued to
improve and he will return to Iraq shortly.

But a contract was made to gift Nouri with a second term he didn't
earn. In exchange, he was supposed to do certain things. He has never
honored the contract and that has resulted in the first ongoing crises
of his second term. It's not minor. And when people talk about this
political crisis -- his inability to honor a power-sharing agreement
(remember, the idiot's party came in second) -- this is what they're
talking about. But Jane Arraf won't tell you that or, it appears,
anything else that might make Nouri look bad.

The Royal United Services Institute of London's Shashank Joshi wrote a column for CNN noting the problems the country faces: Al-Maliki has undermined political institutions that were designed to be
independent, such as the central bank and election commission. He has seized personal control of key army and intelligence units, many of them CIA-backed, including the 6,000-strong Iraqi Special Forces.[. . .] Taken together, Maliki's heavy-handed and sectarian actions have fanned
flames that were never really extinguished. The result is a powerful
sense of Sunni victimhood with many policies, such as de-Baathification
(the removal of Saddam's party loyalists from positions of influence),
seen as little more than collective punishment of Sunnis.

Jane Arraf won't recognize that. The reality is that the Iraq people
turned out to vote in 2010 and their votes were supposed to count and
were supposed to matter. They braved violence, they braved threats,
they traveled by foot from polling station to polling station when their
names weren't on the voting rolls. They ignored Nouri's branding of
Iraqiya as "terrorists" and "Ba'athists." They ignored his use of the
Justice and Accountability Commission to clear the field of many of his
political rivals (whose names were then pulled from the ballots). They
did all of this because they wanted democracy. But democracy required
that when Nouri's State of Law came in second, Nouri step down. He
refused to and US President Barack Obama refused to back democracy.

You're the Iraqi people. Your votes have been overturned. A foreign
country negotiated a legal contract (The Erbil Agreement) to keep their
puppet as prime minister for a second term. This is an insult to you
and your votes. But you try to put a brave face on it because there's
now a power-sharing agreement. But Nouri refuses to honor it. And when
your politicians follow the Constitutional means to kick him out of
office, the US steps in to protect him again. At what point do you
really feel that your country is your own?

Violence in Iraq? When did the US government ever leave Iraqis with any other option?

Barack killed the ballot, circumvented the Iraqi Constitution, refused
to insist Nouri honor the legal contract the US negotiated, how many
times do you see the US government violate your sovereignty and still
believe you have it? Or that there's any way to be heard outside of
violence?

Nouri al-Maliki and the US government are responsible for this violence
because they have repeatedly ignored the will of the Iraqi people.

Obama's always been happy to take credit for getting us out of Iraq. On the White House's web site, there's a statement
reading "The end of our mission in Iraq marks the fulfillment of a
promise Barack Obama made to the American people even before he became
President." In his National Security Speech, the President said "We
ended the war in Iraq, and brought nearly 150,000 troops home."Of course, when he said "we," what he really meant was "George W. Bush." That's right: Bush ended the war in Iraq. This goes against conventional wisdom -- how could Bush have ended the Iraq war when he wasn't even president? The answer lies in a little-discussed document called the "Status of Forces Agreement"
signed by then-President Bush and Iraqi officials in 2008. The document
states unequivocally that "All U.S. forces are to withdraw from all
Iraqi territory, water and airspace no later than the 31st of December
of 2011."Obama, in fact, fought hard to keep U.S. troops in Iraq after the deadline had passed, but Iraqi prime minister Nouri
al-Maliki rejected his proposal to keep military bases in the country,
forcing Obama to abide by the full troop withdrawal agreed to by Bush. Despite all this, U.S. forces are still in Iraq, with as many as 5,000 armed contractors remaining in the country.

No, he did not pull all US troops out of Iraq in the drawdown. Dropping back to the April 30th snapshot:

(Washington, D.C.)
– Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray, a senior member of the Senate
Veterans Affairs’ Committee, applauded the site dedication for a new State
Veterans Home and the ribbon-cutting of a newly completed Residential
Rehabilitation Unit building in Walla Walla. Senator Murray has a long history
of working to support the veterans of the Walla Walla region, including her work
in 2004 when she successfully urged the VA
to reject the recommendationfrom the Capital Asset
Realignment for Enhanced Services (CARES) Commission that the VA close the
facility in Walla Walla.

“I am proud to
be a partner in both of these projects and pleased that I was able to secure the
federal funding to support the construction of both of these state of the art facilities that will
help meet the long term care needs of veterans in the region,”
Senator Murray
wrote. “The commitment we make to
care for our servicemembers and veterans does not end when they return home. It
is so important we ensure these men and women have access to the quality care
they deserve.”

That's good news for veterans and it comes one day after Memorial Day
was celebrated. In an open letter to American Legion members and their
families yesterday, AL National Commander James Koutz offered, " I hope that you will join me in remembering to honor not only veterans
who were close to you but also all of our veterans who gave their all.
While the mass media often makes this weekend out to be about barbecues
and department store sales, it is up to each one of us to remind our
communities about the true meaning of this day." In San Diego, Craig Gustafson (San Diego Union-Tribune) reports
that the names of Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods were added "to the
walls of the Mount Soledad Veterans Memorial." September 11, 2012, a
terrorist attack was launched on a US facility in Benghazi, Libya and
four Americans were killed: Doherty and Woods along with the State Dept
diplomat Sean Smith and US Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens.

Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods' family and friends gathered to honor
them. Doherty's friend Navy Seal Capt Jason Ehret delivered the keynote
address and noted, "Glen and Ty were the kind of men this country is
proud to produce as citizens and as warriors. That fateful night in
Benghazie they did what I expect any SEAL would have done. . . . They
ran to the sound of gunfire. They had experiences all too well the hell
of war and knew that Americans were in need of assistance."

Hillary proclaimed, "Was it because of a protest? Or was it because of
guys out for a walk one night who decided they'd go kill some
Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make?"

Dorothy Woods, wife of the late Tyrone Woods, had an answer for her in
San Diego yesterday, "In the face of that first incredibly insulting and
ignorant question, let us follow their lead and challenge ourselves
with making a difference, not only today but every day. It is our moral
responsibility to honor their sacrficie by speaking up for them,
protecting them and caring for their loved ones left behind. When we,
as one nation under God, can do so, we assure that they will never, ever
be just bumps in the road."

Kevin Drum (Mother Jones) couldn't make it 24 hours without yawning at the dead declaring today, "Are you tired of Benghazi!
Me too." You know what I'm tired of? Circle-jerk male bloggers like
Kevin Drum who see everything in terms of a partisan lends. I'm
especially tired of little war whores like Kevin Drum who now get
embraced by the left when they should have been run out of every left
outlet for their support for the Iraq War. Kevin's giddy on Bob Stretch
The Truth Somerby. I would have thought Bob's attack on Valerie Plame
and Joe Wilson would have ended his time in the circle jerk --
especially since he lied about Valerie and Joe just to protect his
friend 'reporter' Matt Cooper who Scooter Libby outed Plame to. But
ethics are in short supply in the blogger circle-jerk -- as are facts.

By the way, Kevin Drum's an idiot, read the original talking points,
no mention of a video. He and Bob try to reach to graft the video onto
the talking points, but it's not there, they're damn liars. The points
saying the attack was "inspired by the protests in Cairo" is not linking
to the video. If the CIA wanted to say the video was responsible, the
original talking points would have included that. But Kevin so busy
fondling Bob's tiny prick, he can't deal with reality. It's really
funny how when Maureen Dowd or any woman deals with the totality of
Susan's Rice's presentation, Bob Somerby roars (as much as pipsqueak can
roar) about the need to be exact. In fact, he's groused about
reporters covering this, all these months later, not including Rice's
full statements -- from five different Sunday programs! But it's okay
for them to add "video" to the talking points when there is no video
originally mentioned. It's called lying and it's dishonest. But so are
they, they whore for partisan reasons.

They also don't want to point out that the full communications have not been released. As we noted last week,
Victoria Nuland sent an e-mail September 14, 7:39 pm. It's released.
It's in the batch. But it refers to other communications which have not
been released:

I just had a convo with [deleted] and now I understand that these are
being prepared to give to Members of Congress to use with the media. On that basis, I have serious concerns about all the parts
highlighted below, and arming members of Congress to start making
assertions to the media that we ourselves are not mking because we don't
want to prejudice the investigation.In the same vein, why do we want Hill to be fingering Ansar al
Sharia, when we aren't doing that ourselves until we have investigation
results... and the penultimate point could be abused by Members to beat
the State Department for not paying attention to Agency warnings so why
do we want to feed that either? Concerned.

And "deleted"
is "CIA OCA." She didn't think she was getting her way (or "the
building"'s way) so without notifying the people she was dialoguing
with, she did an end run around them by bringing CIA OCA. But that's
not enough for her as we noted:

If you read the e-mails, which apparently few actually did, you come
across Victoria Nuland at 9:23 PM (September 14th) writing, "These
don't resolve my issues or those of us my building leadership. They are
consulting with NSS."
Where are the e-mails from State to NSS?
It's worth noting that the wording is rather chilling when you compare
it to her lengthy e-mails. In an e-mail chain with multiple agencies,
Nuland wants changes and doesn't feel she's getting what she wants. At
some point she and others at the State Dept discuss this and decide to
bring in NSS to override the ongoing process/exchange. Nuland feels no
need to offer, "We may involve NSS in this." She waits until after the
fact to declare that because her "issues" aren't resolved, her
leadership is "consulting with NSS."

So she does an end run around the chain of communication twice. And the
NSS communication has not been released either. That's nearly two
hours after she last did an end run. Two hours worth of communications
before she felt she (and her "building") had gotten what they wanted and
she could let the other group know they were being outvoted. CNN reports today,
"A congressional committee on Tuesday subpoenaed current and former top
State Department officials related to the development of 'talking
points' by the Obama administration to publicly explain the deadly
attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, last year."

That's the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Chair Darrell Issa's request is [PDF format warning] here. Among other things (it's five pages long), it notes:The documents the White House released on May 15, 2013, did not
answer outstanding questions about who at the State Department, other
than spokesperson Victoria Nuland, expressed reservations about certain
aspects of the talking points, including language that made clear the
State Department had received prior warnings of threats in the region
and was aware of previous attacks on foreign interests in eastern Libya,
and that extremists linked to al Qa'ida may have participated in the
attacks. Nuland's correspondence to the interagency suggests that she
did not raise these concerns in a vacuum.

Again, Drum is bored. He's never attended a hearing on Benghazi -- nor
has Somerby -- so he has no idea of any of the issues involved. But he
knows he's bored. Scary. Last time he was bored, he ended whoring to
start the Iraq War. Maybe dumb idiots should be given a scope to cover
and maybe if they're being paid to cover something, they need to haul
their candy asses to Congressional hearings so that they know what the
government witnesses -- Charlene Lamb's full testimony from last fall is
still a mystery to Drum -- are testifying to?

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About Me

I'm Michael, Mike to my friends. College student working his way through. I'm also Irish-American and The New York Times can kiss my Irish ass. And check out Trina's Kitchen on my links, that's my mother's site.